A second, almost identical satellite (SAOCOM 1B) will be launched "in the near future", also aboard a SpaceXFalcon 9 rocket, Praderio said.

SpaceX has always been trying to achieve ground landings on its Vandenberg facilities, which is named Space Launch Complex 4 (SLC-4 for short). But a successful landing would mean the company would no longer have to rely only on its drone ship for post-launch landings, according to Wired. Previously, the SpaceX ground landings all have been occurred at the company's launch site: Cape Canaveral, Florida, where the company has a pair of launch and landing pads.

Now it's the second stage which burned its single Merlin engine for 10 minutes before executing deployment.

The rocket took just 12 minutes from take off before launching Argentina's SAOCOM 1A satellite (pdf). It carries a high-resolution instrument called a synthetic aperature radar that will be used for emergency management and land monitoring. The mission's main objective is to collect soil moisture information.